Here’s Hands Across the Sand on the Suwannee River, with boats, during the WWALS outing from Woods Ferry Tract to Suwannee Springs Saturday.
Picture by Gretchen Quarterman for WWALS.
Here’s an out-take from the making of, as Gretchen attempted to Continue reading
Here are the signs Sabal Trail planted Friday at the Suwannee River.
Updated 2017-05-23: Clarify what the google map is about.
See the Continue reading
Sabal Trail has hidden the “depressions” they admitted to recently.
Updated 2017-05-23: Clarify what the google map is about.
See the Continue reading
Received Friday:
Today Sabal Trail workers were clearing underbrush and small trees on the bank of the Suwannee River where the pipeline is installed under the river to install a sign. I could not see what the sign said, the sign was on the ground with the words facing down.
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t STT say Continue reading
Lots more pictures now posted of this sunny Suwannee River outing past springs and sand like snow, plus Hands Across the Sand.
-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®
You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
These aerial photographs by Beth Gammie cover the route of the Saturady 20 May 2017 WWALS Outing down the Suwannee River from Woods Ferry Tract Launch to Suwannee Springs. She took them for WWALS 23 November 2016, on a Southwings flight piloted by Roy Zimmer. They’re all looking from Hamilton County south (or west) across the Suwannee River into Suwannee County.
I have pulled out a few detail shots, of Woods Ferry Tract Launch and of Suwannee Springs.
Update 2023-04-13: Pictures.
Due to low water, we’re moving the May 20th outing downstream! With lunch, swim stops, and bon-bons, of course. Bring bug spray and the usual personal flotation device, boat paddles, food, drinking water, warm clothes, and first aid kit. If you don’t have a boat, there are many outfitters, or let us know and many of us have spare boats.
Two outfitters advise there should be enough water on this route to avoid much boat dragging. There is a slight 30% possibility of afternoon thunder showers. Same date, same time, same river: just a bit downstream.
When:
9AM Saturday May 20, 2017, meet to shuttle
10AM: Start paddling
12PM noon: Stop for Hands Across the Sand
“Say NO to dirty fuels and YES to clean energy”
2-3PM: Finish some time around then
Put In: Mile 158.0, Woods Ferry Tract Launch, in Suwannee County, Florida
GPS of Entrance: to Woods Ferry Tract 30.343508, -82.855187
Paddle Distance: 8.0 river miles
Paddle Duration: 4 hours
Directions to Put In: From Live Oak, travel north on Continue reading
Update 2017-05-17: OK, the water’s gotten too low at the original location, so we’re moving downstream to Woods Ferry Tract Launch to Suwannee Springs.
Hands Across the Sand on the Suwannee Saturday! The river is quite low (48.78 feet NAVD on the White Springs gage), but it looks doable from the put-in and take-out. A ranger at Stephen Foster State Park told me paddling from White Springs to Swift Creek would be doable, perhaps with a few dry spots. I’ll also call a local outfitter or two for their opinions.
Meanwhile, bring bug spray (gnats) and a rope (to pull your boat over sand bars), and we’re still on for 9AM Saturday 20 May 2017. See the outing announcement for more details.
Plus: that’s the day of Hands Across the Sand, “Say NO to dirty fuels and YES to clean energy”. WWALS has been saying that for years, so somewhere on the Suwannee we will stop and do Hands Across the Sand against the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline and for solar power.
Obviously nobody lives in most of the Okefenokee Swamp or the Osceola National Forest, but also most of Clinch County is unpopulated west of the Swamp, as is much of the Gulf coast along the Suwannee River Estuary, from Cedar Key north to Horsehoe Bay, plus large parts of Dixie and Lafayette Counties west of the Suwannee River.
Nobody Lives Here:
Unpopulated U.S. Census Blocks,
screenshot by jsq from interactive map by
mapsbynik.
Update 2017-06-20: As someone pointed out, rangers do live in the Okefenokee Swamp, presumably in the white area along the access road.
Cedar Key is the island at the bottom of the map, and from a bit north on the Gulf Coast you can follow Continue reading
A primary objective of the WWALS Science Committee is to compile published scientific literature for the Suwannee basin. We are doing this using online search engines including the University of Georgia System Galileo program and Google Scholar. Remarkably, our searches have identified thousands of published scientific papers and reports that link to the keyword, “Suwannee”. Examination of many revealed that they describe research using dissolved organic matter isolated from the Suwannee River near Fargo, GA. This is the material that gives the water its special color.
Photo: Richard T. Bryant, in Pamela P. Holliday, Sherpa Guides, unknown date,
The State of the Swamp: The Suwannee River Sill and DuPont’s Mining Proposal Grab attention and Concern in the Okefenokee
Digging further Continue reading